Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

Banshees of Inisherin. More movies like this, please. Meaning, more movies with adorable donkeys in them.

 

"Darkstar": No, not the early John Carpenter movie. It's a compilation movie from an interactive video production from 2010. It was filmed over several years by filmmaker J. Allen Williams, combines actors & CGI backgrounds, and features most of the original cast of MST3K. It involves a space pilot revived from long-term hibernation who has to deal with amnesia, ship damage, dead crewmates, and a mission to change history. The plot is kind of disjointed, which is to be expected, since it was boiled down from hours of available game footage. But I thought it turned out OK, and since Williams did the CGI work pretty much by himself, it looks very well designed.
I got this movie on DVD a few years ago, but this showing featured a slightly revised cut of the movie. It was an on-line watch party, with Mary Jo, Beez, Trace, Frank, and J. Elvis chatting and riffing (including a running gag regarding MJ's lack of a screen credit). Afterwards, there was a Q&A with them and Williams. I was disappointed when Williams said it was unlikely the game would be re-released, given the needed updates to the software, but I understand some footage is available on YouTube. All in all, it turned out pretty well. I understand the new cut will be out on Blu-Ray soon; I'll be on the lookout for it.

 

I've always loved Johnny Knoxville, and I enjoyed this film. I wish I would have seen it at the time, but I just watched it now. It was great light comedy. The cast was wonderful. There wasn't a dull moment.

 

Minority Report. This is one I remembered fairly little of, since I haven’t seen it in twenty years. Revisiting it, it’s a pretty good thriller. I recognized a lot of Spielberg’s style this time around, with the sci-fi-thriller premise enlivened by some Indiana Jones-style playfulness around the edges, the all-out “and then . . .” approach to action scenes, and the love of throwing in some gross-out elements to make the audience squirm. Spielberg’s still in his teenage-boy approach to blockbusters, not dad-movie mode. It makes the movie a decent bit of fun even if the script is fairly stiff. In another director’s hands, this story might come out little better than another Equilibrium, but Spielberg gives it some personality, and focuses on some fairly creative, prescient implementations of future technology to flavor a very clever but starchy story that explores the reliability of predicting crime.

Tom Cruise is a solid lead, but the film might have been better served by an actor less in glossy star mode and more able to disappear into the role of a haunted father whose role as an elite cop comes crashing down when he’s framed for a predicted murder. Cruise just doesn’t have a lot of texture and it keeps the film’s narrative and its emotional heft feeling less immersive. The film also suffers from that early-2000s blockbuster look where it’s got a lot of CGI, and it’s not bad but it’s not great either, and the whole thing has a very ugly overexposed, washed-out look that I think is meant to help hide the CGI but just makes it look more like an Xbox game. I think the movie’s strengths — which include Colin Farrell giving a really good performance as a skeptical official that I think was overlooked because he was still dismissed as a pretty-boy in those days — outweigh its weaknesses, because there’s a lot to enjoy in its sci-fi concepts and Spielberg’s execution. But it does have weaknesses that hold it back to the good-but-not-great category.

 

MacGruber
2010

This recurring sketch on SNL was always pretty humorous, but it turns out MacGruber is not a good guy and not very funny in this movie. The original joke premise of MacGruber doesn't even appear until late in the third act.

Anyhow, the best parts of this film include the soundtrack which includes some comedically well timed 1980's classics, Kristen Wiig singing some of her lines rather awkwardly as only she can do, they ought to have had her doing this more often as she nails it, and Val Kilmer being cool as heck as the evil villain, sporting his ponytail and long sideboards. Too funny. And there are some humorous one liners and gags, here and there.

First viewing here was the unrated cut and it just got way over the top overall for my taste and with way too much toilet humor and cheap dialogue and MacGruber himself is just so unlikeable in this, as opposed to the goofy character I remember from SNL.

But at least it made 9.3 million off its 10 million dollar budget and it is better than it ought to be in a bizarre and weird off putting sort of way. I dunno.
Watching that was something else.

 

Flavors of Youth (2018)

Three short anime coming-of-age stories about adults reflecting back to memories of their childhood; friends they made, the food they ate, and family bonds. It's a really sweet film and as even though the characters in each story are separate from one another, they do share some common trends and there's a nice little epilogue in the end that does tie everything together. It all takes place in China although this is a Japanese anime. And this was made by the Studio that released the widely accredited "Your Name".

 

Tetris

a movie about the development and battles to control the rights of the game.
It's pretty good for about an hour but then it gets really bogged down and repetitive and tries for a silly chase at the end.

 

So, you're saying it's not really a...blockbuster?

 

tbh when I first heard about this movie I assumed it was gonna be like Battleship - an attempt to do a narrative based on the game.

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

I had so much fun with this. It's a big goofy film with a great cast, lovable characters, and terrific special effects, both practical and CGI. The trailers were pretty terrible, so I do hope this does well enough to warrant a sequel or two. However, it doesn't have an overacting Jeremy Irons in this, so I have to give this 0 out of 5, total arsefest.

 

That already exists in real life.

 

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
It's not an epic game-changer like LotR, but it's fun, and it manages to be a decent movie and simultaneously feel like an actual D&D campaign. I'll probably go back and see it again if it stays in theaters a while.

 

John Wick Number Four- Cool is the name of the game. Every scene is atmospheric. The guns are silenced, or at least not too loud, because it's more stylistic this way. The color palettes are muted--one might say strategically understated. My theater itself was literally on the lower end of the thermostat. All of which meant it was the perfect environment to nestle into a reclining sleep and catch up on my rest.

Also there was some decent karate parts, and honestly more about the hotel/hospitality industry than I have ever heard in my life.

 

LMAO

 

The Princess Bride. Everyone my age loves The Princess Bride, but I didn’t grow up on eighties movies and never actually saw it until high school, when its appeal was largely lost on me. Seeing it the second time, its delights are much more apparent.

It’s a nicely balanced tale of comic adventure that appeals to kids and adults alike. There’s silliness and swordplay along with its parental appeal to the bond between generations created by passing down beloved stories. It’s genuinely witty and highly quotable, fast-paced, and brimming with clever scenes of adventurous action. Add in a great cast who give it real warmth, and it’s a delightful romp.

 

Jaws. It's been a while since I last saw this one. Entertaining enough, and I can certainly see why it was such a hit in 1975, qualifying as the first ever summer blockbuster, but I spent about half the time wanting to strangle Mayor Vaughn for refusing to close the beaches. Of course, if he'd done so, there would've been no movie.

Still, the movie's certainly a product of its time. The thing I found most shocking was the way people so casually smoked in the hospital.

 

The Cat and the Canary (1939)
I hadn’t seen this in decades, but it’s still lots of fun. Relatives of a newly deceased eccentric gather at his remote mansion in the swamp to hear the will, but an escaped maniac, a legendary hidden necklace, secret passages, and murder mean that they all get more than they bargained for.

Bob Hope is on top form as a cowardly but good-natured family member who is more interested in the girl (Paulette Goddard) than the inheritance. It is, as I have already said, lots of fun, with an emphasis on comedy rather than scares, and even though a lot of the jokes are very familiar, Hope’s comedic charm makes them work. The whole thing is very reminiscent of a Scooby Doo adventure.

I’ve seen the 1978 version (it doesn’t have the ‘Wally’ character, that having been written especially for Hope) and it is not nearly as fun.

 

Dungeons & Dragons - Honor Among Thieves

I am very happy I made the sojourn to go see this film. I have been waiting for it my entire life. I had to travel to the big city to see this. And it was worth it. It will be coming to my small town's independent theatre, but I wanted to be there on official opening night. I will go see again when it comes to my town.

 

He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985)

A nostalgic romp from a past life. It essentially serves as an origin story for She-Ra; Hordak kidnaps baby Adora from the king and queen of Eternia and raises her to serve as a commander of his forces. When the Sorceress guides Prince Adam on a quest to give a special sword to a woman he's never met in a strange land, he befriends new people in Etheria and is eventually told the true story of who she really is. It has all of the cheesy dialogue from an 80s cartoon that you'd expect. But it's still relatively entertaining.

 

Godzilla vs. Gigan
1972

Very enjoyable, especially the last hour during which there are plenty of kaiju scenes of death and mayhem and alliances are formed. And that scene where the kaiju punt the Boulder around the horn, it eventually knocking Gigan in the head is one of the funniest scenes in the franchise.
Really loved everything about the kaiju fights. And Godzilla and Anguirus talking lol. Nice flying back attack too, blasting into Ghidorah.
The aliens being roaches reminded of something else and there was a slight environmental message going on too. Entertaining film. Very fun indeed. Nakajima's last time in the suit.

 

Adventures in Babysitting. There once was a golden age called the eighties, when you could get a tire for fifty bucks and every single teen movie was set in the Chicago suburbs. This is a charming example of the genre, in which Elisabeth Shue plays a high school babysitter who has to take her charges into the big, scary city to rescue her runaway friend, and ends up running into nothing but chaos. A cackling tow truck driver with a hook hand, a car thief, mobsters at a chop shop, a blues bar, a gang fight on the el — you know, the whole Chicago experience. It’s a gleefully silly, exaggerated kids’-eye vision of the dangers of setting off into the adult world of the big city, perfectly calibrated to thrill, semi-chill, and elicit a lot of laughs. Shue is very good as the harried babysitter, and the kids — a dweeby teen with a crush on her, his douchebag friend, and an adorable kid sister who’s obsessed with Marvel’s Thor well before that was simply the normal state of childhood — are a solidly comic collection of oddball types. The film moves from one disastrous situation to another at breakneck pace without the comedy or adventure ever losing momentum. It’s just a really well-constructed, entertaining romp that’s perfectly calibrated to the longing-to-be-adult-but-still-innocently-childish teenage experience.

 

What a film. I love the atmospheric 'old dark house' murder mystery movies and arguably this is one of the best.They really don't make them like they used to. In a similar comedic vein I can recommend What A Carve Up from the 1960's.

 

M-3-gan: Sort of interesting premise, but I’m not sure it played out in the most interesting fashion. They could have explored the robot’s misapprehension more, or even let it wrestle with its owners’ disappointment. Of course, those choices would have made it less of a slasher/horror film, so here we are.

Anyway, the only thing that confused me is why, from an in-universe perspective, the robot was dancing when confronting the CEO.

 

Godzilla vs. Megalon
1973

Very entertaining. Enjoyed it. Seatopia. Megalon has a strong arsenal of attacks. Nice tag team battles between the four of them. Jet Jaguar. Gigan.
And the flying drop kick, excellent!

 

It made for a highly viral YouTube clip, if nothing else.